RIFLE RANGE BOY

Emilia Pérez (2025) Director:  Jacques Audiard mvtimes.com/es/2024/10/29/emilia- perez-film-musical-genre-bender / This musical offering would not have garnered as much airtime if it had not been for an openly transgender individual who won the Best Actress awards at both the Cannes and the Oscars. Interestingly, a female actor (a cis woman) insists on being referred to strictly as an 'actor', not an 'actress'. They are particularly keen on this, demanding to be addressed as 'actors'. I suppose this does not apply to transgender actors. A quick glance at Karla Sofía Gascón's Wikipedia page states her occupation as an actress. For a transgender person, being addressed as female represents the ultimate victory of her transition.  It continues to be one of the most nominated films of the year and the most nominated non-English language film in the Academy's history. When it comes to the basics, this is a gangster film with a twist. The twist is that one can...

Joker: Folie à Deux (Madness shared by two; 2024) Director: Todd Philips No matter how much they suck at anything, adults are not supposed to tell children they are wrong. They are supposed to be encouraged, only showered with positive vibes. It is believed to give them self-confidence and stretch them to greater heights beyond their capacity.  Nobody is graded. Everyone gets a medal for participating. Everyone is a winner, and he is exceptional and made to believe.  I have news for you. Go into the world and realise that nobody gives two hoots to you. Everybody is in a hurry. Nobody has time to listen and talk to you. Every man is an island. To make matters worse, the others have no qualms about stepping on or over you to achieve their goals. Losing you is just one step closer to their goals. There is no time to coach or wait for you. It is a man-eat-man world out there. Living under the hawking eyes of helicopter parenting or even chip-implanted surveillance, these snowflake...

Yesterday (2019) Director: Danny Boyle Growing up in the late 70s and 80s, popular music formed like soundtrack music of our lives. It was always in the background as we, my schoolmates and I, went on living and doing stuff we needed to as we ventured into adulthood. Of course, there was a time and place to listen to music. Technology had not developed for us to enjoy it on the go. Listening to neighbours blaring their cassette player is not counted.  Then there was the excitement of listening to new songs on the radio and recording them on cassette tapes as the music played. Once a week, the newspapers would display the Top 10 songs and albums in different cities. The slightly affluent ones amongst us would get their fix of the latest songs recorded at record shops for a fee. Of course, it was not legal, but what the heck, we were and still are in a third world country.  Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever essentially filled up most of our pubescent lives. Sporadic input came f...

Dancer in the Dark (2000) Director: Lars von Trier The plot of this film may be all too familiar to followers of Indian cinema. Stories of self-sacrifice, white lies and concealment of the truth to protect the greater truth are all too common. In the western world, this type of pictures would make it to Cannes and earn many accolades!  There were too many loopholes in the story to be taken seriously, hence the mixed response at its premiere screening; it was booed and clapped simultaneously. Mainly because it was set in the early 60s USA and Björk (the Icelandic smiley superstar) did the music score and the acting, it was given a second lease of life. Björk acts a Czechoslovakian immigrant, Selma Ježková, a single mother with a preteen son. She works in a factory making sinks and secretly holds a secret tightly to her chest. Selma has a hereditary degenerative eye disease which is slowly making her blind. She realises that it is just a matter of time before she becomes...

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Written and Directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen The Coen brothers are known to have made many quirky movies with plenty of toilet humour which may satisfy the need of most movie buffs. This particular offering seem to stray from their usual fare but ended up as a dark biography of a folk singer. It takes a certain kind of madness to be able to repeatedly withstand the frequent hard knocks of life and still hold steadfast to your belief that you may indeed change the world one day. Most would follow the path of least resistance and the path frequently travelled on, especially when you next meal is a question mark. I suppose that is the difference between a socialist state than one that does not compensate for their jobless citizens. In a social state, the country at least takes care of their basic needs whilst the individual can dwell into non-rewarding careers like developing the arts, music and talent. In a country like us, artistes have to kowtow to cap...

Les Misérables 2012; [pronounced leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːb (Fr)] Back in the spring of 1995, as I was wandering around the streets of London aimlessly after the clinical examination That is the advantage of having name starting with the first alphabet. You are mostly in the first few names of the exam register, hence you sit for your practical exams first and have to wait the rest to finish theirs! So, my partner in crime then, LSC, insisted that we should not leave London without watching at one show in the theatres there. Living on a shoestring budget, the only plausible way to purchase their ticket were from a kiosk in Soho selling last minute tickets. Of course, this is before a time when Soho (at least in UK) only meant a strip " SO uth of HO uston (Street)" which was famous for nightlife, theatres and Chinese food! The concept of Small Office Home Office was unheard then!  To me then, theatres did not excite me. I thought it would like the school dramas that t...